Wrestling at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Games:

Men's Bantamweight, Freestyle

Host City: Helsinki, Finland
Venue(s): Exhibition Hall I, Helsinki; Exhibition Hall II, Helsinki
Date Started: July 20, 1952
Date Finished: July 23, 1952
Format: Win by fall = 0 points; win by decision = 1 point; loss of any type = 3 points. Three judges gave decisions, thus all decisions were either 2-1 or 3-0. Five bad points eliminated a wrestler. When only three wrestlers remained, if they had not yet met one another, they wrestled further rounds. Medal placements were determined by the match record among the medalists, with bad points as a tie breaker. A wrestler in the medal rounds could continue with 5 or more bad points.

Summary

After winning the 1948 Olympics, the 1949 European, and the 1951 World Championships, Turkeyâs [Nasuh Akar] should have been favored but he retired in early 1952 and did not compete in Helsinki. The final round came down to Japanâs [Shohachi Ishii], Soviet Azerbaijani [RÉÅid MÉmmÉdbÉyov], and Indian [Khashaba Jhadav]. MÉmmÉdbÉyov had beaten Jhadav in round five so Ishii fought Jhadav in the first final match, winning by unanimous decision. Ishii then defeated MÉmmÉdbÉyov, also by unanimous decision, to win the gold medal, with the Soviet taking silver. Jhadavâs medal was the first individual Olympic medal ever won by an athlete from India.

Ishii was a top judoka but was forced to give up that sport after World War II when American occupation forces banned judo. He then switched to wrestling and became the first Japanese to win a gold medal after the war.

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